Mixed feelings for Red Bull

The Red Bull Racing drivers of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen left Australia with mixed feelings.

For Australian Ricciardo, on his home track on the opening weekend of the 2017 Formula One World Championship it was a weekend to forget.

During qualifying, Ricciardo crashed his Red Bull into the tyre barrier forcing his team to rebuild the car.

It then ground to a halt on the out-lap from the pits with a gearbox sensor failure on route to the grid.

He would eventually join the race two laps down, but he would eventually retire with another technical issue involving the power-unit.

‘On the plus side, I’m getting out of here ? it’s been a long week, Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun, but I feel bad for everyone, bad for the fans obviously ? I believe there’s more people here supporting me than the others. Ricciardo told motorsport.com.

But for Max Verstappen, the positives were there for Red Bull Racing to take.

Their overall pace, whilst not on par with Mercedes and Ferrari was quick enough to trouble them, in fact Verstappen’s pace to stay ahead of Lewis Hamilton following his pit-stop ultimately decided the race.

‘I’m still a bit surprised that I was quite close to Kimi, I think the car behaved quite a bit better in the race than in qualifying. It’s difficult to say how much [Mercedes and Ferrari are ahead], but it looked a lot better in the race.

‘The race was a lot more positive than qualifying; I’m happy about that.

‘We still need to improve, and we will – and we’ll see what happens in the next few races.’ Verstappen told formula1.com.